Maximizing worker safety in an industrial or commercial environment is a challenging task of paramount importance. Business organizations regularly provide safety manuals, post instructions and make training aids available to their workers, while also offering numerous hours of training to emphasize the importance of adhering to established protocols and procedures with a goal of ensuring the safety of all workers.
An organization may not simply rely on the fact that training has occurred in order to ensure that requirements, standards or regulations will be adhered to, or that the safety of all workers may be ensured. Rather, the organization must implement one or more compliance monitoring systems or processes in order to determine a level of compliance with any relevant requirements, standards or regulations.
Within an industrial or commercial environment, workers who perform potentially dangerous tasks or activities are typically instructed to maintain positive, manual control over themselves or their equipment during such tasks or activities. Frequently, the workers are instructed to manually grasp one or more handrails, handles, bars or rings that may be provided in association with one or more structural elements, such as ladders or sets of stairs, or on one or more tools, utensils or other like apparatuses. For example, a worker who is climbing a set of stairs is often trained to hold onto at least one handrail while in transit, in order to maximize the safety not only of the worker but also of any other workers traveling ahead of or behind the worker. Likewise, a worker who is operating a powered machine or carrying a heavy object is frequently instructed to grip the powered machine in a particular manner or to place his or her hands in a specific location beneath the heavy object. Where a safety requirement is predicated on proper manual contact, however, determining compliance with the safety requirement is often difficult. Moreover, a worker's failure to act in accordance with such a safety requirement often does not manifest itself until the worker has already injured himself or others on account of his or her failure.